Nijisanji

Nijisanji (にじさんじ) is a group of mostly 2D-only Virtual YouTubers and also known as "Virtual Livers" (バーチャルライバー Baacharu Raibaa) when posting in other sites outside YouTube such as to NicoNico Douga (a self-made Wasei-eigo word pronounced similar to "alive", not as the "liver" organ) who stream via iPhoneX devices with face capture and Nijisanji's app. This is technically simpler and much less expensive than a full-body 3D-capture equipment, but the resulting motion is mostly limited to facial features, and the technology has been noted to suffer some stuttering and accuracy issues. The group started in Japan in early 2018 and is managed by Ichikara Inc.

On 17 July 2018, they announced Chinese and Taiwanese Vtubers as an expansion into those markets.

On 10 May 2019, they announced the commencement of their Nijisanji NetWORK (にじさんじネットワーク Nijisanji NETTOWAAKU) partnership program which is aimed towards giving supports towards other virtual talents. The first VTubers to participate in the program are Tenkai Tukasa and Fairys Chan.[1] It was first hinted at on 8 May.[2]

Trivia

Nijisanji can be represented as the number 2434, so this is sometimes seen in their material. Also during live-streams, fans sometimes donate 2434 yen (~$21 USD).

The company is run by a man named Iwanaga, whose Twitter is here. He sometimes does live-streams as a female-looking VTuber named Iwanaga-chan.

On March 2019, Nijisanji was forced to abort the debut of a Virtual Liver called Raito Shindo (真堂雷斗) [2]. Apparently, the VA of Raito violated several terms of his contract related to the privacy of his fellow colleagues and other VTubers. The scandal was widely cover by image boards and forums such as 2chan, 5ch and 4chan.